FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT CHE - PAGE 5

If a small but growing group of Argentine legislators has its way, the remains of Che Guevara will come back home one day--back, that is, to a home that many people do not know he had. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was born and raised in Argentina, the son of a rich man. But it was with Fidel Castro's revolution that Guevara won fame and infamy. It is with Cuba that his iconic image is associated. And it is in Cuba that Guevara is interred. The Argentines don't expect to change all that.

No one in this dusty Andean foothills town remembers much about the philosophies of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the legendary Marxist revolutionary. "His ideas were just for him," says Susana Osinaga, the town nurse who embalmed Che's body after he was executed by Bolivian soldiers in the nearby village of Higuera. "We really never knew why he came and with what motives." But in death, the famous hero of the Cuban revolution, who proved a miserable failure at fomenting revolution in Bolivia, has achieved a kind of sainthood in this town of red-tile roofs, 435 miles southeast of La Paz. Residents swear that Che, who came to Bolivia in 1966 to spread the international Marxist revolution, can perform miracles.

Rene Jacobs, the countertenor-turned-conductor who has led many recordings that show his affinity for vocal music, here turns to two late-18th Century symphonies, with similarly exhilarating results. These are fresh, rhythmically strong performances that make others on period instruments--the excellent accounts by Roy Goodman and Sigiswald Kuijken--sound genially relaxed by comparison. Still, Jacobs does not press so hard that he coarsens the tone or overplays the touches of humor; even the finale of No. 92, which for once is taken at a real presto, has an effervescence that lightens what otherwise might come across as driven.

Hey, you, in that T-shirt that reads, "Emotionally Unavailable Men Rock": I assume your fashion choice is meant to be ironic. (And I hope that the man you're talking to thinks it's ironic too.) As for the gentleman sporting that "Born To Lose" tee: I believe you just might be. But do you really want to tell me so? Some of these T-shirts are funny. They may even be, in the wearer's case, true. But others are positively appalling. And the only thing more disturbing than the fact that marketers are selling "Dumb Blonde" tees is the fact that we're buying them.

Che Smith's recent campaign fundraiser wasn't a typical pass-the-hat event for someone hoping to get elected alderman. Bouncing up and down on the edge of a stage at a packed South Loop club, the candidate who goes by "Rhymefest" in his Grammy-winning rap career belted out lyrics and peppered his between-song banter with exhortations to vote for him in Tuesday's election. "We're going to take the power back," he shouted over a rolling bass line while slapping hands with the crowd, many of whom weren't old enough to get the wristbands so they could buy alcohol at the 18-and-over show.

Peter Carey packs his novels with swaggering fugitives, from Australian outlaw Ned Kelly to an art forger and a literary hoaxer. The name of Carey's latest hero, Che Selkirk, fits the pattern, though his circumstances don't: He's a 7-year-old boy living with a grandmother from Manhattan's Upper East Side. The year is 1972. The title, "His Illegal Self" (Knopf, 272 pages, $24.95), hints at trouble to come. Grandma Selkirk calls the lad Jay and wants to "bring him up Victorian," as he puts it, with books and board games, hoping he won't turn out like her daughter.

A 3-year-old South Side girl was killed Saturday morning in a fire that was sparked by a portable electric space heater. Kala-Che Dawson died in her bed, Chicago fire officials said, after the blaze tore through her family's two-bedroom apartment in the 900 block of West 58th Street. An autopsy showed that the child died of a combination of burns and smoke inhalation, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. Relatives said her 4-year-old brother, Jenome, was rescued from the burning building by Jack Beal, 35, a neighbor.